A clay priestess with a topknot and red paint turned up in a Japanese burial moat

A clay figure of a female shaman, about 40 centimeters tall and still carrying red paint on its face, has been recovered from the moat around a burial mound in Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. The Gunma Prefectural Buried Cultural Properties Survey Foundation found it while digging the southern end of Tumulus No. 1 at the Nishikaminomiya site, and the prefecture announced it on Oct. 21, 2026.

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Archaeologists date the figure to the late fifth century, in the Kofun period, a span HeritageDaily gives as roughly AD 250 to 600, when elite burials were marked by large earthen mounds. The figure is a haniwa, an unglazed terracotta sculpture of the kind set on and around those mounds, and the fifth-century date places it among the first human-form haniwa made in the region. Its head and torso survive; the base does not.

Tumulus No. 1 at Nishikaminomiya: where the figure came out of the ground

The announcement came from the Cultural Heritage Division of Gunma Prefecture, with the excavating foundation listed as the contact. According to the prefecture’s release document, the figure was found in the moat of Mound No. 1 during excavation of the mound’s southern end in fiscal 2026. The foundation has worked at the site since fiscal 2020, which began in April 2020, as part of a Tone River channel improvement project. The release does not give a calendar day for the discovery itself, and the dig’s end date is not stated. HeritageDaily, for its part, says excavations at the site are complete and that the figure was found during the latest season. Because the fiscal year runs from April, the find falls somewhere between April and the announcement in October.

The prefecture puts its length at roughly 45 to 50 meters and the moat at about 18 meters wide; the secondary report from HeritageDaily, which credits the newspaper Yomiuri, gives about 49 meters for the mound and says the site holds 11 burial mounds in total. HeritageDaily adds that the figure had fallen from a projecting section of the mound into the surrounding moat, a likely explanation for why a sculpture meant to stand on a mound ended up below it.

Height differs slightly between the accounts. The prefecture says the surviving figure is about 40 centimeters tall, and HeritageDaily gives about 41. Both describe the same object, so the figure is best read as roughly 40 centimeters tall. The original cylindrical base, on which haniwa of this kind stood, is lost, and only the head and torso survive; no source gives a width or weight.

Topknot, sash and red paint on a miko figure

The prefecture identifies the figure as a shaman, or miko, and says red paint was applied to the sash, the hair tie, the wristlets and the face. The right wristlet is rendered in clay and red paint, the left in red paint only. In the prefecture’s words, as translated here, the piece is well preserved and valuable. HeritageDaily describes the hairstyle as a Shimada style with a topknot of modelled clay cords.

That report adds that the woman wears ceremonial clothing and a bracelet on her right wrist, and holds a rod-shaped object in her left hand that is thought to have served a ritual purpose. It also calls the figure one of the earliest known human-form haniwa in Gunma, which fits the prefecture’s own explanation that figures of people appeared in the Kinai region in the early fifth century and reached Gunma from the late fifth century.

Surviving pigment is what sets the figure apart from many others of its kind. Red paint remaining across the face, sash, hair tie and wrist ornaments lets researchers see how its makers meant it to look, rather than reconstructing the surface from bare clay. The prefecture’s description separates the two wristlets by treatment, one with clay and paint and one with paint alone, a level of detail that only a well-preserved surface can show. Further study of where the pigment sits against the modelled features would be the natural next step, though neither source reports any analysis yet.

Public display from Oct. 28 at the Excavation Information Hall

The prefecture says the figure goes on public view on Wednesday, Oct. 28, for one month, in the second-floor exhibition room of the Excavation Information Hall at the Gunma Prefectural Buried Cultural Properties Research Center. The room is closed on Saturdays, and the showing coincides with the foundation’s public outreach day. The excavation site itself will not be open to visitors, so the exhibition room is the only place the public can see the figure. The prefecture frames the display as part of the foundation’s regular outreach,. Opening times beyond the Saturday closure are not given in the release, and anyone planning a visit would need to confirm hours with the research center.

One discrepancy is worth flagging. HeritageDaily says the figure is due for display at the Gunma Prefectural Museum of History in late October. The prefecture’s own release names the research center’s exhibition room, and that is the venue given here.

For background on the object type and the period, there are reference entries on haniwa, the Kofun period and the city of Isesaki. The river work that brought archaeologists to the site is a channel improvement project on the Tone River, and the fiscal-year dates in the release follow the public-sector year that begins in April.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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